Branko Džinović’s scholarly research draws on his experience as an improviser and a performer as well as original interviews, and analyses of scores and recordings. His doctoral dissertation from the University of Toronto is entitled “The Composer-Performer Interrelationship in the Bayan and Accordion Compositions of Sofia Gubaidulina” (2017), and it examines how Gubaidulina, one of the greatest living composers, has collaborated extensively with the eminent bayan and accordion performers who perform her works: Friedrich Lips (Russia), Elsbeth Moser (Germany), Geir Draugsvoll (Denmark), and Iñaki Alberdi (Spain).

Džinović’s study sheds light on the compositional processes behind Gubaidulina’s De Profundis (1978), Silenzio (1991), Fachwerk (2009), and Cadenza (2010), all revised and reimagined by the composer through dialogues with their performers. Džinović also discusses the implications which discussion around the rehearsal and performance of Gubaidulina’s In Croce (1979) had on the composer and her finished work. As a theoretical framework of the study, Džinović employs ideas from Howard Becker’s Art Worlds (1982), an influential text which describes artwork as the result of essentially collective efforts of the artists performing the “core activity” with their contributors (in this case, Gubaidulina with Lips, Moser, Draugsvoll, Iñaki).

The dissertation contributes a fresh view of such important issues in contemporary music performance practice as authorship of collaborative works, authority of the composer, fidelity to the score, and the role of the performer.

Interview with Sofia Gubaidulina (Boston, 2017). Photo credit: Lisa Kretsch.
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